The Mandalorian & Grogu is released this week and is set for the lowest opening weekend of any Star Wars film ever. With the TV shows also struggling, here’s why interest is waning.
It’s been seven years since the Star Wars franchise visited a galaxy far, far away on the big screen. In December 2019, The Rise of Skywalker, the third and final film in the franchise’s sequel trilogy, was released, earning $1.077bn (£806m) worldwide. It pulled in only around half what the first film in the trilogy, 2015’s The Force Awakens had made. This disappointing amount reflected the increasingly poor audience and critical response to the three films. A year earlier, in 2018, the standalone film Solo: A Star Wars Story had also bombed hard, earning just $393m (£294m) globally.
Since then, the film series has been on a lengthy hiatus, while Lucasfilm, bought by Disney for $4.05bn (£3.03bn) in 2012, has been busy expanding the Star Wars universe on TV with a whole host of live-action shows, starting with hit The Mandalorian. However, interest in these has declined as they have proliferated: the most recent new series, 2025’s Skeleton Crew, recorded the lowest opening ratings for a Star Wars show yet, while 2024’s The Acolyte was cancelled after one season.
Now, finally, a new Star Wars cinematic era is beginning with this week’s The Mandalorian & Grogu, the 12th live-action film in the franchise and a spin-off from its small-screen counterpart. Co-written by The Mandalorian series co-creators Jon Favreau and new Lucasfilm president Dave Filoni with Noah Kloor, and directed by Favreau, it follows the further adventures of Pedro Pascal’s helmet-wearing bounty hunter Din Djarin and his sidekick-in-training, aka “Baby Yoda”. But the signs here, too, are not good. Pre-release tracking suggests it will score just $80m domestically during its opening weekend – the lowest opening for a Star Wars film ever. So what exactly has gone wrong with the Star Wars universe?
When it comes to The Mandalorian & Grogu, Dr Rebecca Harrison, academic and author of BFI Film Classics’ The Empire Strikes Back book, suggests that the subject matter might be too niche. The film is set immediately following the events of The Mandalorian season 3 – and several years after the fall of the dastardly, Darth Vader-led Galactic Empire at the hands of the Rebel Alliance, as seen in Return of the Jedi. It sees the titular pair embarking on a new mission to rescue iconic villain Jabba The Hut’s son Rotta in exchange for information regarding a target of the newly established, far more democratic New Republic regime. Yet, as “it’s a continuation of a story rather than a standalone movie,” Harrison tells the BBC, “if you’re not familiar with the TV shows, you’ve got such low investment in going to see it.”
Too many storylines
Indeed, this might be a problem with the whole Star Wars universe, as it’s developed over the past decade – while the interconnected web of storylines might be a boon for committed Star Wars fans, it’s a burden for the casual viewer. The post-Empire narrative begun by The Mandalorian, and set to be continued by The Mandalorian & Grogu, has run across not only other live-action series The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew, but also the acclaimed animated offerings Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, also created by Filoni: these shows have 11 seasons combined. “It has felt like homework to try to keep up with everything, so I wonder if that might limit their audience,” says Harrison, who is also the author of forthcoming book A Star Wars World.
Where Andor succeeded, other Star Wars shows have failed to capture its rejuvenating appeal
Clarisse Loughrey, chief film critic for The Independent, agrees, pointing by contrast to Tony Gilroy’s critically-acclaimed series Andor, which consistently grew its viewership through its two season run, as a standalone Star Wars show you could enjoy on its own: “That could be your first piece of Star Wars that you’ve ever seen, and you’re not going to feel like you’ve been thrown in the deep end.”
Andor also stood out from the other series as a defiantly prescient critique of authoritarianism, offered “in terms you could legibly graft on to the world right outside your door”, wrote Vulture’s Nicholas Quah. It was a Star Wars saga that didn’t require a single lightsaber, Jedi-Sith battle, or an abundance of fan service to entice viewers but instead wielded characters that “felt like flesh-and-blood beings whose lives extended beyond their service to the story”, as he put it.
Yet where Andor succeeded, others have failed to capture its rejuvenating appeal. The Book of Boba Fett was criticised for being too much of a Mandalorian-linked mini-series, and reducing the beloved eponymous bounty hunter, who appeared in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, from a mysterious antagonist to what critics have described as a “superfluous bystander” in his own story. Meanwhile, critics suggested that Ahsoka, while visually appealing, relied too much on backstory from the two animated series Clone Wars and Rebels, in which its ex-Jedi lead character was a firm fixture.
The female-centric Acolyte series, set approximately 100 years before The Phantom Menace and costing $187m (£140m) to make, earned generally favourable reviews from critics, comparing it to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and calling it “bold,” “fun”, and a “breath of fresh air”. However, it was cancelled due to low viewership, according to Lucasfilm, while actress Amandla Stenberg publicly called out the “intolerable racism” she said she’d been subject to in the wake of starring in the show. “Had it been given more time and resource, maybe it would have been more successful,” says Harrison. “If it wasn’t part of this huge glut of other shows that you’re somehow meant to keep up with.”
Then there was Obi-Wan Kenobi’s solo series which was an enjoyable enough return for Ewan McGregor’s Jedi Knight. But also one that was indicative of post-George Lucas Star Wars, wrote The Guardian’s Stuart Heritage, which “exists almost exclusively to bulk out thin gruel, joining various dots that didn’t need to be joined, for the delight of a quickly ageing fanbase.”
